On April 13, 2019, former country star Taylor Swift began teasing her fans with new music when she posted a photo of a bedazzled heart using just the caption, “4.26.”
This sent her fan base, who are called “Swifties,” into overdrive trying to analyze and figure out what it meant.
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At the time, they didn’t know if it meant new music, new merchandise, or what. It actually meant a new single and new music video. Every day leading up to April 26, she posted a new clue using the exact same caption.
The biggest clue reveal came on April 25 when she made a surprise appearance at a Nashville butterfly mural and revealed it was to “pull off the best surprise clue reveal.” It was a big reveal alright! Smack dab in the middle was the word, “ME!” which just so happens to be the title of the single.
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As we said earlier, along with releasing the recording of the song, which features Brendan Urie from the band Panic! At The Disco, the two-time CMA Entertainer of the Year also released a color-filled music video to accompany it.
Like all her videos, Swift dropped Easter Eggs and it takes detective-level skill to figure them all out, but there was one detail that we did a double-take about – an appearance from The Chicks!
At the end of the first verse, Swift sings the lyric, “And you’re the kinda guy the ladies want/And there’s a lot of cool chicks out there.”
In the video, the camera pans to a wall behind Urie filled with paintings of baby chickens – or chicks – wearing sunglasses, as well as a painting of The Chicks. The trio posted that part of the video on their Instagram with the eyeball emoji.
In an article for ELLE, Swift wrote about the impact their song “Cowboy Take Me Away” has on her, saying, “I instantly recall the feeling of being twelve years old, sitting in a little wood-panelled room in my family home in Pennsylvania. I’m clutching a guitar and learning to play the chords and sing the words at the same time, rehearsing for a gig at a coffee house.”
While some fans just thought it was an homage to her favorite girl group, others thought it might be a clue that they might be collaborating.
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Turns out, they did, in fact collaborate on the song “Soon You’ll Get Better,” which Swift wrote about her mom’s cancer battle.
Watch Swift’s music video for “ME!” in the video below.